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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30121950">Hope Advancing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyphlogiston/pseuds/ladyphlogiston'>ladyphlogiston</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Brandy - Freeform, Gen, Healing, Rescue, Trauma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:55:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,655</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30121950</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyphlogiston/pseuds/ladyphlogiston</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but longing fulfilled is a tree of life (Proverbs 13:12)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sirius Black &amp; Harry Potter, Sirius Black &amp; Kreacher, Sirius Black &amp; Regulus Black, Sirius Black &amp; Remus Lupin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hope Advancing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophibug/gifts">sophibug</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I don't normally post stories before they are completed, but this is a gift to my sister, who has completed her graduate level Quantum Mechanics course!  I am very proud of her.  The rest will likely be written in due time.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The damn bottle was empty. Again.</p><p>Sirius poked at it moodily. He was too drunk to attempt Aguamenti, and conjured brandy always tasted vile anyway.</p><p>He could go downstairs for more, but Molly would catch him. She was so bloody determined to keep him from drinking his own damn brandy in his own damn house.</p><p>A cold draft of air brushed over his feet, and he shivered. The terror was waiting, barely kept at bay. He needed to be drunk.</p><p>"Kreacher!" he called. He hated Kreacher, but Kreacher was better than the nightmares.</p><p>"Nasty master calls," Kreacher muttered from behind him.</p><p>"More brandy, Kreacher."</p><p>"More brandy, Kreacher. Brandy that Kreacher's mistress laid down, brandy bought for lost Master Regulus to have when he was grown. Nasty master drinks it all," Kreacher muttered, shuffling towards Sirius and peering at him balefully.</p><p>"Now, Kreacher," Sirius barked.</p><p>Kreacher vanished, and reappeared with another bottle. "Brandy for worthless Master Sirius," he sneered.</p><p>"Thank you," Sirius sneered back, grabbing the bottle and dumping some into his glass. He took a swallow.</p><p>"Oh, Master Regulus' brandy," Kreacher moaned, shifting on his feet as if he wished to take the bottle back.</p><p>"Master Regulus is gone, Kreacher!" Sirius snapped. "He's dead, and we don't even know where his body is."</p><p>"Kreacher knows."</p><p>Sirius nodded, then paused. He carefully set the glass back on the table, then leaned forward, brow furrowed. "Hang on," he said, speaking slowly so the words would come out straight. "Do you mean you know Regulus is dead, or do you mean you know where his body is?"</p><p>Kreacher shuffled his feet, muttering to himself.</p><p>"Answer the question, Kreacher. That's an order," Sirius said.</p><p>Kreacher looked shifty, but replied, "Kreacher knows where Master Regulus is. Kreacher brought Master Regulus to the Dark Lord's cave."</p><p>"What?" Sirius demanded. He pushed the glass and bottle away and rubbed his head. "How….Start at the beginning, Kreacher. Tell me about how Regulus died."</p><p>Kreacher still wouldn't look up, but he spoke without muttering or grumbling first. "Master Regulus sent Kreacher with the Dark Lord and said Kreacher should help the Dark Lord and then come home. The Dark Lord took Kreacher to a nasty cave and made Kreacher drink nasty potion. Kreacher was very sick. The Dark Lord put his locket in the potion and left. Kreacher climbed down to the water, and the dead things grabbed Kreacher and pulled Kreacher down and down and down. Kreacher came home."</p><p>"And you told Regulus about this?" Sirius asked.</p><p>Kreacher nodded. "Master Regulus made Kreacher better. Then Master Regulus asked Kreacher many questions. Master Regulus read books in the library, many dark books which Kreacher does not touch. Master Regulus said horcrux."</p><p>Tears started to gather in Kreacher's eyes, but he continued, as if the telling was a relief to him. "Master Regulus made a new locket. Master Regulus made Kreacher take him to the Dark Lord's cave. Master Regulus told Kreacher to take the locket from the potion and destroy it, and leave the new locket in its place, and to go home without Master Regulus. Master Regulus drank the potion, Master Sirius!"</p><p>"Merlin!" Sirius sprang to his feet and paced up and down the narrow room. "What about the locket? Did you destroy it?"</p><p>"Kreacher cannot!" Kreacher wailed. "Kreacher tried and tried but the magic is strong!"</p><p>"Where is it?" Sirius asked.</p><p>Kreacher vanished, and popped in again holding the gaudy gold locket from the living room cabinet. Still sniffling, he held it out to Sirius.</p><p>Sirius picked it up, then dropped it on the table with a grimace. "Well, it feels like dark magic, that's for sure."</p><p>"W-what will Master Sirius do with it?" Kreacher asked.</p><p>"Oh, don't worry, Kreacher, I'm going to destroy the thing," Sirius growled. He pulled out his wand and prodded it gingerly. "I'm not sure how yet, I admit. I'll show it to Moony in the morning. He'll know."</p><p>"Thank you, Master Sirius," Kreacher whispered.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>"Padfoot?" Remus called, cracking the bedroom door open. When there was no response, he tiptoed inside.</p><p>The morning had been a puzzling one. Remus had woken up and discovered that the house was….clean. It wasn't perfect, but the floors had been swept and the cobwebs had been cleared away and the doxies were gone.</p><p>On top of that, the portrait of Mrs. Black was discovered to be sleeping. She hadn't woken up to start yelling all morning.</p><p>And now, perhaps strangest of all, Sirius was asleep in his bed. Usually Remus found him either unconscious, having drunk himself into a stupor, or crouched in a corner, prey to nightmares and paranoia. Remus wasn't sure which was worse.</p><p>Still, if Sirius had managed to fall asleep, Remus wasn't about to wake him. As he turned to leave, Remus spotted a few things on the table: a drinking glass, a bottle of brandy (not empty, surprisingly enough), and a golden locket. Puzzled, Remus lifted the locket to examine it.</p><p>The locket was heavy gold, with an ornate S decoration, and Remus could feel the heaviest of black magic on it. Many items in the house were cursed, of course, but this one seemed unusually nasty, and Remus felt the blackness trying to cling to his fingers. He put it down again and wiped his hand reflexively. What on earth had Sirius wanted with such a thing?</p><p>"Don't put it on, Moony," came Sirius's voice from behind him, still gravelly with sleep.</p><p>"I wasn't going to, Padfoot," Remus replied, coming to sit by Sirius on the bed. "What is it?"</p><p>"'S a horcrux," Sirius replied. His voice sounded heavy. "Kreacher had it. Regulus sacrificed himself to get it, Moony. Regulus! He…." Sirius trailed off and covered his face with his hands.</p><p>"Kreacher!" Remus called.</p><p>Kreacher appeared, looking doubtfully at Remus. "Master Sirius's wolf summons Kreacher," he said.</p><p>Sirius was nodding. "Yes, Kreacher, good. Tell Moony what you told me, about Regulus. Moony will help us destroy the locket."</p><p>Kreacher straightened up and told Remus the story he had told Sirius the night before. Remus felt his eyebrows rising higher and higher as the story unfolded.</p><p>"But Kreacher cannot destroy the locket!" Kreacher ended. "Kreacher thinks the locket must be opened, but Kreacher cannot do that either."</p><p>Remus shifted to the table and peered at the locket without touching it. "I'm not an expert in cursebreaking, Kreacher, but I suspect you're right. It has a large S on it, possibly for Slytherin, and it's decorated with snake patterns….I suspect it requires Parseltongue to be opened."</p><p>"Dumbledore had a breakthrough with Parseltongue towards the end of the war, didn't he?" Sirius asked. "Or is that a false memory? I get mixed up sometimes."</p><p>"No, you remember right, Padfoot. Given what we know now, I suspect Snape speaks a little Parseltongue. Those breakthroughs were shortly after he defected."</p><p>"I'm not showing this to Snivellous," Sirius growled.</p><p>Remus snorted. "That's hardly a surprise. But you may not have to - I've heard that Harry is a Parselmouth."</p><p>Sirius sat up straight. "No one said anything about that to me!"</p><p>"Nobody told me either, Padfoot, but it seemed to be common knowledge among the students. It came up when I covered Naga with the older classes. I never had a chance to ask Harry about it."</p><p>Tears were streaming down Sirius's face. "I can't… I don't… I have to see him, Moony!"</p><p>Remus grimaced, but returned to the bed to pat Sirius on the shoulder. He'd hoped that Sirius's mood swings were getting better, but Sirius still reacted strongly to reminders of his lost life.</p><p>"Harry will be here soon, Sirius," he said. "You'll spend time with him then. We can all work on this together."</p><p>Sirius nodded, still weeping. "Soon, Moony."</p><p>"Does Master Sirius's wolf know how to destroy the locket if it can be opened?" Kreached asked, shuffling closer to peer at Remus.</p><p>Remus shrugged. "I've come across a few references to horcruxes, but I can't say it's my area of expertise. Still, it won't be impossible. I believe dropping it into a volcano is traditional, and that's simple enough."</p><p>Kreacher brightened. "Kreacher is knowing where to get international portkeys, Master Sirius. Kreacher can be getting one without anyone knowing."</p><p>Sirius nodded. "Thanks, Kreacher."</p><p>"Before you go, Kreacher," Remus said, "I do have one other question for you. When the Inferi had you, did you say they were pulling you down under the water? As if they were trying to drown you rather than pull you apart?"</p><p>Kreacher nodded, looking up at Remus, his eyes very wide.</p><p>Sirius furrowed his brow. "That doesn't seem right."</p><p>Remus smiled grimly. "No, it doesn't. The instinct of an Inferius is for brute violence - they kill by blows, or by tearing limbs off. If they were pulling Kreacher down into the water, there was a strong compulsion on them to do so."</p><p>"But why?" Sirius asked.</p><p>"At a guess? I suspect You-Know-Who wanted to keep anyone who sprang his trap for questioning. There must be something under the lake to hold them."</p><p>"What….what are you saying, Moony?"</p><p>Remus shrugged. "I don't want to raise hopes or anything, but it might be worth going to the cave. Maybe we can recover Regulus's body, at least."</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Tempers ran high the next few days. Molly, while initially pleased that the house was cleaner, soon resented Kreacher for taking what she saw as her domain. She continued to cook, with dogged determination, and she continued to invent increasingly pointless work for the children to do, in the cause of keeping them too busy to worry. Naturally, they worried anyway, and sulked over the makework they were given.</p><p>Now that it was accessible, Remus spent quite a bit of time in the library, looking for useful spells and unfamiliar references. He had suggested to Molly that the older children at least might join him, but she had resolutely forbidden it. The twins joined him anyway, from time to time, but the others stayed away.</p><p>Sirius seemed a bit better now that he had a task to focus on. Sometimes he even joined Remus, researching horcruxes and their destruction. But in the evenings he still drank, and his nights were plagued by terrors. Remus noticed him shivering at odd moments, as if the cold of Azkaban would not be shaken off.</p><p>All in all, it was almost a relief when Harry arrived and immediately began yelling at everyone.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>"Harry! Come on, Moony, in here!"</p><p>Remus allowed Sirius to pull him down the hallway by one arm. Sirius had his other arm over Harry's shoulders, and Harry seemed to go along willingly enough.</p><p>They got to Sirius's bedroom, and Sirius turned to Harry and grabbed his shoulders. "Are you okay, Harry?"</p><p>Harry shifted his weight and scowled. "I'm fine, Sirius."</p><p>"I don't think you are, Harry," Remus said gently. "But it's okay. We'll get there."</p><p>Harry turned the scowl in Remus's direction.</p><p>"Come on, sit down," Sirius said, pushing Harry into one of the chairs in front of the fire. "I have something to show you. Can't tell the others; something for us to handle."</p><p>Harry perked up a bit at that.</p><p>Sirius sat on the other chair, and Remus leaned against the table. Sirius pulled a box from the mantelpiece and opened it, to show Harry the locket inside.</p><p>"It's a necklace?" Harry asked.</p><p>"We think it's a piece of very dark magic called a horcrux," Remus explained. "We need to destroy it so You-Know-Who will be mortal."</p><p>Harry looked at it with more interest. "How do we do that?"</p><p>Remus shrugged. "Dropping it into a volcano is traditional. But first we need to open it, and we think it might need Parseltongue to open. Is it true that you are a Parselmouth?"</p><p>Harry nodded. "Yeah, it's true."</p><p>"How is that possible?" Sirius asked.</p><p>Harry shrugged. "Not sure. I found out in second year - I mean, I knew I could talk to snakes, but I didn't find out until second year that it was important. That's how we figured out about the basilisk. Dumbledore said You-Know-Who put some of his powers in me and that's why I can speak it."</p><p>Remus blanched.</p><p>"Dumbledore said what?" Remus gasped at the same time Sirius demanded, "What basilisk?"</p><p>Harry seemed bewildered, and Remus was at a loss for words. "What basilisk, Harry?" Sirius asked again.</p><p>Harry swallowed, took a breath. "I kind of…I kind of thought you knew about that. But I guess no one told you. The Chamber of Secrets was opened my second year. It had a basilisk in it, and it kept petrifying people but then I killed it. It's not that big of a deal."</p><p>"A basilisk is always a big deal, Harry," Remus pointed out as calmly as he could. "I'm a little surprised nobody mentioned this when I was teaching. We did cover basilisks in the upper years."</p><p>Harry shrugged. "Most people don't know, I don't think. Hermione was the one to figure it out, and she got petrified, and then I didn't like to say anything because I didn't want Ginny to get in trouble."</p><p>Remus frowned. "How was Ginny involved? Start at the beginning, if you can?"</p><p>"It….I guess it starts with the diary," Harry explained. "Lucius Malfoy had a diary that belonged to You-Know-Who. It had….well, it told me it was a memory, preserved with magic, of himself when he was still in school. His name was Tom Riddle then.</p><p>"Malfoy gave it to Ginny, and she used it for a long time as a diary. Tom recited some of her diary entries for me." Harry wrapped his arms around himself, clearly unsettled by the memory. "He said he put some of his soul in her, and made her do things: kill roosters, and leave messages, and open the Chamber of Secrets."</p><p>Remus gasped, but didn't interrupt. Sirius was leaning forward, watching Harry with manic intensity.</p><p>"The Chamber of Secrets had a basilisk in it. I heard it sometimes, in the walls, talking about killing people. I thought I was going mad, and then everyone thought <em>I</em> was doing it….well, anyway, then he made Ginny come down to the Chamber so he could suck out her life force and be real again. Hermione had figured out about the pipes before she was petrified, and Ron and I figured out where the entrance was, and then Lockhart was going to Obliviate us but that backfired, and I ended up fighting the basilisk. Dumbledore sent Fawkes, and the Sorting Hat gave me the Sword of Gryffindor, and I managed to stab it, but it killed me, and I was going to die but Fawkes healed me and then I stabbed the diary and….and then Ginny woke up."</p><p>Remus's head was spinning. More horcruxes, and a basilisk, and Dumbledore sent no more help than a phoenix. And he, Remus, had nothing to offer but his own problems. He was worse than useless.</p><p>Harry had wrapped his arms around himself and was staring at his own knees. He'd been all alone against a basilisk, with no help but Dumbledore's phoenix.</p><p>Remus glanced over at Sirius, who was watching Harry, his eyes shiny with tears. Remus reached out and shoved Sirius, and Sirius got the message and launched forward to hug Harry.</p><p>Harry froze up at first, then carefully leaned forward a bit.</p><p>"I'm proud of you, Harry," Sirius croaked. "We both are. So proud."</p><p>Harry collapsed into the hug, tears finally coming. Sirius held him and rocked him slowly, still whispering that Harry had been brave, and strong, and they were proud of him.</p><p>Sirius began to weep a little, and Remus stepped forward to grip his shoulder. They had all survived so much, and come through and found each other. That was something to be proud of.</p>
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